Day 7 - Tsogt-Ovoo to Some Ger
This day started out with a bang. Literally. It wasn't really meant to be my day. After a rough sleep on the floor, we packed up the van... or at least started to. We had a nice gallon-sized thermos that had a glass interior to hold the hot water. It seems like the thermos had had it's time with us. As I was carrying it, and a box out to the van, the bottom fell out of the thermos, and the glass tube, full of freshly boiled water, struck the concrete step that was less than 2 inches from my right foot. The water instantly scalded my foot, melting the skin. I hastily removed my shoe, and pulled down the sock. Thankfully, Maureen had brought her first aid kit with her. We applied some first aid, bought some gauze and made a bandage (something I'm getting kind of tired of doing). In my haste to get indoors - mind you I had to hop back over the broken glass - I bumped into the door frame and broke my sunglasses. Most of the trip that day was pretty uneventful until close to the end. Even a stop in Mandalgovi for lunch provided little excitement, other than Andrew and Maureen's ability to charge their iPods. I was determined not to allow my foot to hinder my fun, so I still got plenty of pictures. Just before finding a ger to sleep in for the night, we checked out some of the craziest granite rock formations I have ever seen. I think I have a new found respect for granite. The formations looked an awful lot like puzzle pieces being stacked upon one another. After a few pictures ( I didn't do much walking because of my foot), we went to another destroyed monastery that was hidden in the cliffs. As Dava so eloquently put it, "Monks.... Communists, boom boom." There was a lovely little birch forest that had sprung up in where the monastery ruins are, which was very surprising as I hadn't seen a tree taller than me for the past week at this point. The ger was warm, with a lovely family that made us traditional Mongolian soup - which pretty much means hot water, fatty mutton and noodles. Interesting side note... it was actually the Mongolians who introduces noodles to the Europeans, not the Chinese. It was also the Mongolians who introduced noodles to the Chinese. We sat around, shared some drinks, and played some cards.
Nora and Dava cleaning up the broken glass.
The brilliant first aid work performed by Maureen.
The bizarre granite formations.
"Communists, boom boom."
Tibetan writing on the walls at the entrance to the monastery.
Day 8 - Random Ger to UB
The day started out like any other, except that I had to redress my foot. First thing in the morning, we began our day of spelunking (okay, it was 2 caves, we only went in 1, but it's a really fun word to use). Andrew and I decided to explore the cave a bit. We had to slide on our backs for the first 15 metres or so, but then the cave opened up (actually, it dropped down) so it was tall enough to stand in. Of course, we left our flashlights in the car, so we took random pictures to light the way. After our first cave we hit the road. Along the way we saw three different herds of gazelles, all progressively closer to us. At one point Dava started chasing them with the van, prompting the male to kick into his defensive technique, which consisted of drawing away the "predator" while the females could escape - and people say chivalry is dead. We ate lunch at a ger beside a sacred mountain, whose name I can no longer remember. The mountain had a natural spring, and is older than any of the nearby chains. Just before eating the old man who lived in the ger led us up a mountain to check out another cave that dropped straight down about 65 feet. He climbed the mountain so fast we thought he was crazy, but then he said I was crazy for the way I chose to go down the mountain. The granite had such great grip that I was able to do the Spiderman crawl down a couple of 8-10 walls without losing my grip at all. In some places, it was difficult to get my shoe to release the rock. Nearby, there were the remains of a structure so old that no one knows what it was. It seems that not all of the ruins were caused by the Soviets after all. The stones were taken from the Sacred Mountain, and placed in a rectangular pattern, with two structures near each other. After lunch, it was a few hours of uneventful driving back to Ulaanbaatar, which we reached around 6 pm.
looking back to the entrance of the cave from just a few feet into it.
Wheels, just small enough to fit through the small part of the cave. It was tall enough for us to almost stand upright past this point.
Chasing down the gazelles in the van. We were doing at least 40, and they were pulling away. God, they're fast.
Another herd of gazelles. It's almost like they wanted us to take their picture.
The Earth's right hand.
Sacred Mountain.
The second cave, looking straight down.
These rocks pre-date recorded history. They're odd because they show up in a place that has never been known to have permanent structures.
And thus concludes my amazing Gobi experience. I hope you enjoyed reading about it as much as I enjoyed being there.
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